At the beginning of episode seven of the second season of the TV series “Breaking Bad,” a mariachi band sings a Mexican corrido, or narrative ballad, about the show’s antihero protagonist Walter White. In the song, called “Negra y Azul: The Ballad of Heisenberg,” the Mexican drug cartel has become aware of Walter’s methamphetamine manufacturing business and has initiated a plan to assassinate him. Among the lyrics are, “Ese compa ya está Muerto. Nomás no le han avisado,” roughly translated in the subtitles as “But that homie’s dead. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
Without spoiling the eventual fate of Walter White, suffice it to say that he was the main character, and the show aired for three more seasons. But regardless of how or whether his life ended, he was indeed a dead man walking for the remainder of the series. His life was a non-stop series of chaotic, irrational, violent events, in which everything and everyone around him suffered from his own desperate attempts to stay alive. Bereft of hope, and on a trajectory worse than death, it was not a life that any rational person would want to replicate.
Like Walter White, “civil” society in the United States is a dead man walking. Public life in the U.S. is a series of chaotic, irrational, violent events, increasingly inhospitable to any attempt at rational discourse. And no clear solution is in sight. Indeed, on its current trajectory, civic life in the U.S. is a dead society walking.
There’s no contingent set of conditions, the occurrence of which will cause it to be a dead man walking. The conditions have already obtained. There is no civil society in the U.S.
Rather, we have become a war of every faction against every faction, in which reasoned, dispassionate discourse has given way to violent rhetoric—and actual violence—from both ends of the liberal spectrum. The ramifications of this are enormous, as extremist brands of authoritarian ideology are now in competition to replace civic engagement with totalitarian “solutions.”
The collapse of civil society is not an accident of the genius of American politics. Rather, the seeds of collapse are in the very sowing of our political and legal structures. America’s founders did not intend to erode and eventually destroy civil society through the political institutions they created. But those institutions necessarily led to its collapse despite any good intentions.
In the U.S., we have reduced politics to the invention and protection of possessive individualist rights claims. Perhaps the better way to put it is that we have inherited such a political theory from 16th-century English philosopher John Locke and his ideological cousin Thomas Hobbes.
In a February 15, 1789, letter to John Trumbull, Jefferson asserted that Locke (along with Bacon and Newton) was one of “the greatest men that ever lived without any exception.” Jefferson expressly believed that the political institutions he was helping to create were a direct application of Locke’s rights theory. “Locke’s little book on Government, is perfect as far as it goes,” he wrote to Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr. on May 30, 1790. “Descending from theory to practice there is no better book than the Federalist.” Locke “laid the foundation of those superstructures which have been raised in the … Moral sciences,” he wrote to Trumbull.
What is that foundation? To use Hobbes’s colorful imagery, it is that the human person has a natural right to possess himself and anything else to which he makes a claim. Having rejected natural teleology for a “state of nature,” Hobbes advanced a theory that the natural state of the human person is violent acquisition. Note, this is not some deviation from human nature. Rather, a war of every man against every man is the natural state. The human person is not social by nature, but rather radically individual. Thus, his life is not ordered toward some good, but rather motivated by unfettered rights to acquire and protect individual goods.
Possessive individual rights do not complement a notion of politics oriented toward the good of the person. Quite to the contrary, they are conceived as antithetical to such a notion of politics. Rights replace good as the purview of politics. Having rejected any notion of a shared political end of the human person, ours is a political society that posits and foments mutual antagonism of every man against every man, to paraphrase Hobbes.
Of course, as everyone knows, the proposed solution to such a bleak view of man and politics is the so-called “social contract.” Each of us has the right to take anything we can, but we implicitly recognize that there’s no real security if those rights are not curtailed. Thus, we have made a tacit agreement not to take one another’s things in a transaction—or rather a series of billions of transactions—of mutual consideration. But this contract is a fiction. The real world is one of possessive, individual rights.
In the liberal theory of American politics, there is no transcendent principle by which order can be established or the fictional contract enforced. Both options have already been summarily rejected in the creation of our political and legal institutions. A political society built on a fictional voluntary surrender of rights collapses when one or both counterparties reject the fiction.
So what happens when a sizeable group of people decide that they don’t wish to enter into the contract, or to keep its terms? While it is a generalization, the answer is one of two results: denunciation of any kind of civic responsibility to anyone, or authoritarian enforcement of the fictional contract.
We see both of these things in the U.S. as we turn to 2026.
On the right, a burgeoning number of people advocate throwing off any notion of mutual responsibility or agreement with anyone else, asserting a kind of social and economic libertarian free-for-all. Rejection of the mythical social contract perpetuates a story of hyper-individualist assertions of individual rights. This results in a social survival of the fittest, discarding those who cannot compete. When the adjective “enlightened” is rejected as a modifier of “self-interest,” raw self-interest takes its place. No liberal principle is available to do anything about it. This is the position of many, though perhaps not all, of the so-called MAGA faithful. And of course, violence—whether private or official—is the only means of enforcing those rights.
On the left, the recent election of Islamist, authoritarian, communist Zohran Kwame Mamdani as mayor of New York City illustrates the polar opposite reaction to the rejection of the liberal social contract. In his inaugural speech, Mamdani declared, “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” It goes without saying that this is a horrifying statement, invoking images of gulags, mass starvation, and a tyrannical police state. Mamdani is either profoundly stupid or profoundly wicked—or both. But one million New Yorkers voted for him, including a shocking 78% of people aged 18 to 29 and 66% of 30 to 44-year-olds.
Catholic Social Doctrine contains the theology and attending language as the only viable alternative to the pathology of liberalism. Balancing solidarity with subsidiarity, CSD provides the pathway to the protection of human dignity and preservation of the common good.
But, of course, this cannot be a solution on the margins of a political theory that explicitly rejects every element of the doctrine. It would require a regime change at the level of a political philosophy that has been summarily rejected for 400 years.
Lockean-Jeffersonian liberalism no more has an answer to Mamdani than it has to MAGA libertarians. The social contract of mutual self-restraint for the sake of civic peace is not part of the theory; it is a voluntary antidote to the inevitable result of the theory. But when enough people withdraw their consent to the contract, civil society dies.
Like Walter White, civil society in the U.S. is dead. It just doesn’t know it yet.
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“Rejection of the mythical social contract perpetuates a story of hyper-individualist assertions of individual rights. This results in a social survival of the fittest, discarding those who cannot compete…This is the position of many, though perhaps not all, of the so-called MAGA faithful. And of course, violence—whether private or official—is the only means of enforcing those rights.” I don’t know to whom Mr. Craycraft has been listening, but it sounds like he is articulating the Nazi philosophy of the unfit being “useless eaters,” which most certainly is NOT the “the position of many…of the so-called MAGA faithful.” He also does not specify what he means by “discarding” those who compete, but his mentioning of “violence, whether private or official” suggests we’re talking about extermination. I would instead call it the position of few, if any, MAGA “faithful.” It remains to be seen whether Mr. Craycraft’s disgusting libel against Trump supporters through his attribution of the Nazi philosophy of “the useless eater” to “many, though perhaps not all, of the so-called MAGA faithful” is motivated by actual malice or good-faith ignorance, though I strongly suspect the former.
Correction…Line 7 of the above should read “those who CANNOT compete,” etc.
This topic is a bit above my pay grade but recently was at a holiday family gathering. When the topic of the legal marijuana industry’s recent decline came up, and I remarked that I thought it was a positive development, I immediately was attacked by a close family member who claimed that alcohol consumption is no different.
MAGA is often not allowed to bring up an opinion without a very excited reaction from the left.
(Just study the history of the Clintons coming into power, Militia era of no tax is legal, farming out of jobs to foreign countries in the 90s on through Hillary’s defeat etc… and you can see why “MAGA” came into being) In the above article it states: “When the adjective “enlightened” is rejected as a modifier of “self-interest,” raw self-interest takes its place. No liberal principle is available to do anything about it. This is the position of many, though perhaps not all, of the so-called MAGA faithful. And of course, violence—whether private or official—is the only means of enforcing those rights.”
I don’t understand the “violence” assertion, if the author or other cares to explain. We MAGA aren’t driving trucks into churches so we can get a better aim at the innocents.
My thoughts exactly. Thank you for your eloquent pronunciation of them.
“throwing off any notion of mutual responsibility or agreement with anyone else, asserting a kind of social and economic libertarian free-for-all. Rejection of the mythical social contract perpetuates a story of hyper-individualist assertions of individual rights. This results in a social survival of the fittest, discarding those who cannot compete.”
Name them, please. A lot of verbiage. Name them, please. 78% of young New Yorkers voted for Mandami. Can we see the percentage of MAGA who represent your characterization? A lame attempt at appearing objective and the same old “both sides” approach. It’s not working.
I think Mr. Craycroft has a profound misunderstanding of the Trump coalition (“MAGA”) in somehow seeing in it libertarianism. That part of the conservative movement has in fact shrunk since the days of Ron Paul and Milton Friedman. There is nothing in the administration’s use of tariffs, successful or not, to protect the manufacturing base of the US and the working class jobs it provides, that fits into Craycroft’s picture. Neither does JD Vance’s articulation of the value of roots and heritage in sustaining a national culture. Craycroft seems to want to equate the right and the left in the hopes perhaps of bringing us together in some other common ground. But there is no such common ground between Marxism wearing a pleasant face and a sound understanding of humanity after the fall which is the basis of political conservatism. Fallen humanity needs law and needs law to be enforced. That serves not libertarian individualism, but the common good, creating a stable space in which orthodox religious faith can flourish and bear truly good fruit for all. That possibility is found on only one side of the political spectrum. There is no path from Mandami to the implementation of Catholic Social Doctrine. The possibility, without any guarantee, does exist on the right. Trump’s mask and personal foibles are unpleasant to some, but the movement gathered around him represents the only current path that keeps the space open for better things to take root and grow. Mr. Craycroft might want to consider making a better contribution to that opportunity.
This contribution is just fine. Libertarianism, MAGA, Mamdani, are all different sides of the same condemned political philosophy. It is time for America to confess the Catholic faith and work toward building a truly Christocentric, integralist society – the type of society the Church’s doctrine not only permits, but also demands.
When you have no true God to worship, man necessarily and by default presumes himself to be god. And then the struggle to the death among gods begins. The First Commandment is first for a very essential purpose.
I’d love to know when and where human affairs have ever been conducted on the basis of “reasoned, dispassionate discourse”. After all, if “reasoned, dispassionate discourse” in the US polity has “given way” to violent rhetoric, it would be good to know when and where it once held sway. In Bloody Kansas, perhaps? In the conquest of the West? At Gettysburg? At Little Big Horn? In the Tulsa Race Massacre? Wikipedia contains a truly staggering list of incidents of civil unrest in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unrest_in_the_United_States Was the reign of reasoned, dispassionate discourse sandwiched in between these very frequent outbursts of violence some where? Did it last a day, a month, a year?
Like all political philosophies cooked up by dreamers and do-gooders, including Socialism, Catholic Social Teaching involves a tacit clause in which human nature changes. This is odd because the book of Genesis is pretty explicit about human nature, and the Bible is pretty clear about the only thing that can change it. In the meantime, the polity of sinners must be governed. But reasoned, dispassionate discourse has seldom had much to do with how that government has been conducted.
We read “… including Socialism, Catholic Social Teaching [CST] involves a tacit clause in which human nature changes.”
Absolute nonsense! CST is the negation of all such ideologies, based as it is on the very odd fact of the “transcendent human person” within earthly history and whose home is not here. Not tribes, clans, factions, nations, empires, economic classes or even Muslims sects.
So, CST is based on the permanence of (not “changes in”!) imperfect human nature. Therefore, for the conscious reader of CST, it first asserts the moral absolutes and then consolidates principles for civil affairs, calling upon–not perfectibility– but at least the moral virtues: prudence, justice, courage and temperance.
About the MORAL ABSOLUTES: the Catechism and the Magisterium (2033-5) identify intrinsically evil acts which are immoral under all circumstances and non-negotiable. These include: intentional killing of the innocent (2270, 2273), infanticide (2268), abortion (2273), euthanasia (2277); and sexual immorality (2352, 2353, 2356, 2357, 2370, 2380, 2381).
And about everything else, yours truly proposes these paired PRINCIPLES capable of civil debate and discernment also toward the COMMON GOOD….Centering, again, on the transcendent (!) dignity of each human person: (1) the transcendent human person AND the family, always together, (2) wider solidarity AND concrete subsidiarity always together, (3) rights AND responsibilities always together, (4) informed conscience AND faithful citizenship always together, (5) the option for the poor AND the dignity of work always together, and (6) solidarity AND sustainable care for God’s creation always together.
Thank you for this opportunity to propose, not impose, an unsolicited brain-dump tutorial on CST!
Right, CTS calls for “the moral virtues: prudence, justice, courage and temperance.” In other words, a change in human nature, since human beings don’t practice any of these things on a consistent basis. As concerns the private conduct of Christians, the church demands all of these virtues, and it also knows that it is not going to get them, which is why we have the sacrament of reconciliation and the demand to forgive not seven but seventy seven times.
For the same virtues that we fail to practice privately to work as the foundation of a polity, we would need most people to practice them publicly most of the time. But in a polity you can’t forgive seventy seven times. Nor can you discourage repeat offenses with a sentence of four Our Fathers and three Hail Marys. The church has no sanctions for bad behavior, just a means to reconcile penitents. That is not going to work in a polity where most sinners are not in the least penitent. A polity needs to punish, and punish effectively to maintain some semblance of peace and security.
To build a functioning polity you need systems that actually work to keep sinners from killing each other and stealing each other’s stuff. This means either tyranny or working within the limits of what laws their sinful natures will accept. It would indeed be wonderful to have a polity based on universal practice of prudence, justice, courage and temperance. On the other hand, if we could achieve the universal practice of prudence, justice, courage and temperance, we would have little need of civil government at all. Until then, though, we need a polity that can deal with a population the is imprudent, unjust, cowardly, and intemperate, and one whose rulers are also often imprudent, unjust, cowardly, and intemperate. And yes, that will mean that you pass and enforce the laws that people will tolerate, even if they are not the perfect expression of virtue. If you don’t, you get civil unrest, black markets, criminal undergrounds, and eventually revolutions.
You cannot make sinners into saints by force of law. They won’t stand for it. And if people were saints already, you would not need the force of law to govern them. Which, yes, makes life difficult for Christian kings and rulers, and has done since there first were Christian states. But the tyranny of virtue has never proved a successful political strategy.
Yo, G.M. Baker,
My opening point, which you seem to evade, is your assertion equating CST to ideologies. Now, as to your different point–of course “you cannot make sinners into saints by force of law.” It’s also true that the sky is blue when there are no clouds.
Because CST is rooted in moral virtues—which, yes, do not simply come with the daily mail—it then is possible to propose more deeply a culture of education, personal formation, and sometimes “dialogue”–with the avoidance of naive optimism (a violation of temperance, justice, prudence and especially political courage!), and penitence. Authentic CST does NOT pretend to have ready-made answers such as your “tyranny of virtue” (although ideologues pretend it is so–and some of them even wear ecclesial collars–which on judgment day might well be ‘converted’ into millstones).
But, instead, genuine CST also includes such as this: ““The Church has no models to present [read ideologies], models that are real and truly effective can only arise within the framework of different historical situations, through the efforts of all those who responsibly [!] confront concrete problems in all their social, economic, political and cultural aspects, as these interact with one another.” (Centesimus Annus n. 43, citing Gaudium et Spes n. 36).
About a coherent society (broader than personal piety) oriented toward the common good, the conundrum is that “when you have it, you don’t know it, and when you lose it, you can’t construct it.” When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3). A problem worthy of (what’s that word again, oh yes) dialogue.
Thank you for engaging…even this dialogue on CWR advances CST.
SUMMARY: In itself, CST is the negation of ideology, rooted as it is instead in moral theology (Centesimus Annus, n. 54, citing Rerum Novarum n. 143). Might we have agreement that what has often marketed or imposed as authentic CST simply is not so?
On Hobbes, in Leviathan, he explicitly asserts his principle idea, that the STATE IS GOD.
Self-styled elites in establishment institutions have sleepwalked for decades deluding themselves in thinking they are owed an assumption of trust.
As to society, or rather, societies, real ones are small, rooted in faith and family and friends and hometown.
I don’t believe there can be a civil society of 300 million people.
Thanks for saying what few will acknowledge.
On the violence of “both sides,” I note the absence of any facts illustrating this. I also note that political opinion polls have repeatedly documented that a plurality or sometimes majority of respondents self-identifying as “left” espouse that violence and assassination are sometimes fine with them. I believe same polls indicated vast majority of the “right” rejected violence.
Chris: was the assault on the capital a myth? Immigrants pushed down on pavement by leftists?
C A P I T O L.
It was partially a myth Br.Jacques. Honestly, I don’t know how you’d label the political flavor of the folks wandering through the Capitol building on January 6th.
QAnon’s in another category. Or alternate universe perhaps.
Those people were an outlier. And why was that woman shot through the door?
Was Hunter Biden’s laptop a myth? Yet bringing it up was taboo times two.
J:
I do not share the BBC/etc narration of the 2020 US election protest.
As you may know, the BBC is being sued for intentional interference in the 2020 US election, for deliberately editing Trump’s actual speech to his supporters, in which he called for their “peaceful protest.” The word in italics was edited out by BBC, and in substitute of Trump’s words, they inserted an unconnected clip from an hour later, when Trump used the words “fight, fight like hell.” The false impression BBC concocted was to paint Trump as inciting violence, when he was doing the opposite. As you may likewise know, the political establishment in the UK government, which owns the BBC, forced the BBC to demand the resignations if Tim Davy, the BBB director general, and Deborah Turness, the head of BBC news, which resignations swiftly happened. The law suit against BBC, arguing that the UK government via BBC materially interfered in the US election, continues.
As to actual violence, you may also know that one homicide was committed, by a DC police officer, unprovoked, who shot a young woman dead. This policeman has not been held accountable for killing this woman.
You may likewise know, as is reported, that National Guard were requested by Trump, and refused by the Speaker if the House, the amazing stock market superstar Nancy Pelosi, who was joined in refusing such security by the mayor of DC, who over-ruled the then head of the DC Capitol Police, who wanted the National Guard support.
You may likewise know, that paid FBI actors (i.e., including some not actual FBI agents, but specially hired hands) are identified in video footage fomenting the crowd. One such is a paid informant who profited handsomely first his services provided in promoting agitation in the crowd. And you may also know that the FBI refuses the request of US senators to state how many FBI operatives were inserted into the protest crowds, and for what purpose.
And from the same available news sources, we can all watch video of Capitol Police opening doors of the Capitol and telling protesters that they were free to walk inside.
I suppose I could go on, but suffice it with this: it is not a very convincing case that the above political theatrics should be understood as an “assault on the US Capitol.” Which is why the BBC director and head of of the BBC News were forced out by the UK government.
The “assaults” of 2020, happened in places like Minneapolis and Philadelphia, and I am told by people who know, that the protests in Philadelphia were directed at liquor stores-door were broken in forced entry and registers were smashed, but somehow liquor was destroyed, it disappeared, especially the top end stuff.
J:
In addition to my earlier reply on your 1st sentence, as to the second, perhaps you might recount a specific event in evidence on people being pushed around, which would allow me, or anyone, to weigh that, on the balance, versus homicidal Venezuelan narcotics gangs with automatic rifles taking over apartment buildings (I believe that was in Phoenix?), or the industrialization of child sex trafficking inside the industrialization of open borders illegal immigration under Joseph Biden et al, and the new and picturesque multi-billion dollar industrialization of Somali fraud in Minnesota?
Perhaps?
Are you as concerned about the 2020 “Summer of Love” riots? They were far more destructive and of longer duration than Jan 6. As I recall former VP Harris was involved with bail raising efforts on the behalf of the 2020 SOL rioters, and the 2020 Democratic convention was silent. The MSM covered for them by calling them “mostly peaceful” while people died and buildings burned. Selective indignation undermines credibility. One could say that the Jan 6 people were following the bad example set by the 2020 “Summer of Love” riots. Why should feeling the “love” be the exclusive lot of the common everyday person? There is a serious lack of solidarity between the ruling classes and the common person on the street.
Actually, Brother, the media/democrat narrative in many respects was a myth, as acknowledged by the BBC. But even if you were to say 3,000 people were there for the event as falsely described by the media/democrats that’s still far less than 1% of Trump voters.
As for illegal immigrants who do not want to return to their home country – after being adjudicated here as illegal and required to deport themselves and are still here – just because they cry, resist and fall to the ground for photographic impact – they still gotta go back – willingly or unwillingly. Every other country on the face of the earth does the same. Only the US has offered to buy their flight ticket, give them $1000 and the opportunity to stand in line to enter the US legally. That is generously humane and charitable beyond any other nation and the demands of justice.
The “both sides” argument is, at best, a delusion, and at worst, it’s a blatant lie. How many assassination attempts were made on Clinton, Obama, and Biden compared to Trump? Facts don’t lie. Most of the violence in our culture today is coming from the left. Some people don’t have the integrity to see or admit that.
Where’s the right wing Audrey Hale?
Thank you for pointing out the political extremism that exists in our country today and the insidious roots that produced it. We need the balance found in the likes of the American Solidarity party which is completely founded on Catholic teachings. We as Catholics need to separate ourselves from secular politics and present a Christian witness, a light in the darkness!
Exactly correct. This is why the Church has condemned liberalism. It’s shameful that there are Catholics who continue to posit that Enlightenment liberalism is compatible with the Faith; it is not. In fact, liberalism is compatible with nothing save Hell.
Philosophy properly speaking is love of wisdom. But you got “raptor” in there instead of wisdom. The Church has lived through difficult ages in the past without having to put every single soul into a peril, or even just the same motion or directionality all at once, all at the same time, in order to have “an authentic identity”. Jesus promised the sign of Jonah from time to time, one of the reasons for which is /was to put a cap on our complaining, over-intuition, over-self-concern and misleading idealisms.
You statements @ 9:50am relate about things I do not have and to which I have no access besides; I would have to conjure up “right replies”. You can’t do that to me or anyone.
This was a tremendous non-response.
Yours here is the non-response, you have dodged the issue with the “raptor” plunder-rob connotation.
And the secondary input by you could be a blind-side. Easy to hide and shift behind the pseudonym.
You have a lot to answer for, I gather.
It’s ok, your malice is forgiven. Go well.
More to answer for, a raptor who gives malice to forgive it.
The author needs to take a step back. I had a discussion the other day where I threw out a half dozen examples of direct calls for violence on the “left” where in response someone struggled to generate a single comparable example from the “right”. We have a steady stream of news reporting always implying a great deal of violence from the conservative side of things with no actual examples and no acknowledgement the actual violence coming from the “progressive” side of things. If we aren’t careful we can buy into that disconnect from reality.
I share the author’s concern about the state of civil society, but not his level of despair because I can see that there are plenty of civil people out here, and while the author and folks on the left see things as particularly bleak, I know that while no Democratic party leadership objected, most of the left is disgusted by “here’s where Justice Amy Coney-Barrett’s kids go to school if you want to attack them” and most of the right know that Nick Fuentes is an idiot with a really big mouth performing for clicks.
Yes – Catholic Social Teaching is great, but despair is not appropriate.